Dayton seeks more input for Southwest LRT plan

Gov. Mark Dayton says that although disagreements over light rail are likely to continue, he hopes to resolve opposition from Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and the City Council. (AP file photo)

For the second time in a week, Gov. Mark Dayton met behind closed doors Tuesday with state and local officials over the stalled plans for the Southwest Light Rail Transit project.

Dayton told reporters at a Capitol news conference after the meeting that he hopes to break the impasse by getting more citizen input on the $1.55 billion LRT line, which is slated to run 14.5 miles between downtown Minneapolis and Eden Prairie.

Dayton said that although disagreements are likely to continue, he hopes to resolve opposition from Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and the City Council.

“I think all things considered [the meeting] came out positive and the real key now is we’re involved in a process that includes citizen participation, especially people who felt they weren’t listened to the last time,” he said, adding that environmental impact on area lakes is among the concerns.

Dayton said that the process will take longer but that “it’s better to get it done right.”

Last week Dayton, Metropolitan Council chairwoman Susan Haigh and other officials agreed to postpone up to 90 days a final Met Council vote on the plan. The plan calls for two shallow tunnels through the Kenilworth Corridor area of Minneapolis, a popular recreation area. But many in the city have wondered whether that alignment would capture the highest number of riders, and they fear possible impacts to nearby lakes and homes.

Meanwhile, local chambers of commerce in Minneapolis and St. Paul that support the project have criticized delaying the vote. Employers have been clamoring for years for better transit options in the southwest metro.

Asked if the shallow tunnels option through Kenilworth was the only option, Dayton said he isn’t going to “prejudge” where the trains will eventually run.

“I’m not going to say because the purpose of this undertaking is to look at all of the possibilities that have been considered before and look for anything that hasn’t been considered before,” Dayton said.

“I deeply regret that the process has come to this point,” he said. “… The reality is that we’re at a critical point here with a major route that so far has been determined to be the most desirable, or the least undesirable, which faces strong, very strong opposition from the mayor of Minneapolis and the City Council.”

Dayton said there will be another meeting next week to figure out how to expand citizen participation on the project. Pat Born, the Metropolitan Council’s regional administrator, said at the closed-door meeting that the environmental questions for the project should be answered in the next 90 days, according to Dayton.

The draft environmental impact statement, however, can’t be completed within the 90-day period. Dayton noted that there’s some dispute as to whether the environmental impact statement needs to be completed before municipal consent is requested.

“There are still some unanswered questions there,” Dayton said. “I think in the framework of 90 days we should have the questions answered that are outstanding now.”

One comment

The process was flawed Our reps told us that the Uptown option does not attract any more ridiers than the kenilworth wihich run thru a park while Uptown option has some of the busiest buslines.They claimed that the criteria fro this line isto attaract new riders .This same line on UNIV AVE will replace the #50 bus and convert the #16 riders to rail.Why is this different .It is waste to run this line thru Kenwood near rich people who will never ride this line.It does not even serve N Mpls the new stations in Mpls are in low density area except the lake St.Why waste $200 M on tunnel when they could have built a tunnel on NIC MALL or Blaisdel Mpls want to do the mall this will help the business and reduce congestion downtown.Buses to Uptown are of very slow.